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Mayor Adams along with Rutgers Economics Professor, Jason Barr, introduced a plan to extend lower Manhattan into the New York Harbor by 1,760 acres for a new area to be named, “New Manhattan.” This expansion is meant to help accelerate climate change goals, improve affordable housing, alleviate congestion, and lessen NYC’s vulnerability to climate-change induced risk and disasters.

When asked about his vision for the artificial area, Barr responded that he envisions New Manhattan to be 'a diverse neighborhood that contains housing in all shapes and sizes, from traditional brownstones to five-story apartment buildings to high-rise towers.” The plan, which would completely surround Governor’s Island, includes 180,000 affordable housing units, the shoreline expansion would house an extension of the city's 1 and G subway lines, as well as a 35-acre park, called the 'Main Square.’

With the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy still present in this new plan, the expansion of an artificial island would move vulnerable places like Wall and Broad Streets further inland, and would create the opportunity to make the peninsula designed with specific protections around its coastline to buffer itself and the remainder of the city from flooding. In essence, the construction would ensure that wetlands ecologies around the shorelines would absorb storm surges. Building the land at a higher elevation would further improve Manhattan’s protective ability. To make the project socially and politically more appealing, the Mayor’s office announced that New Manhattan could recreate historic ecologies and erect environmental and ecological research centers dedicated to improving the quality of New York’s natural world.

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